my wheels started of with a TM Enzo (with force-feedback) when it was relatively fresh on the market.
It had a good feel to it in the sense of its effects and its overall design but it fell short in the sense of build quality / finish. And let's not forget it only has about 260° of rotation so it's more of a wheel for arcade-style racing games than for the real stuff like LFS. In my case the right shifter lever broke into 2 parts one day because of a design problem: there was a very, very strong spring to hold it back. The force needed to initiate a shift was simply "too much" for the thin layer of plastic that this lever was made of.
Pedals were: "cheap but good" plastic with sufficient resistance and long-enough travel and had an overall nice feel to them.
Logitech MOMO black
Next in line was the black and relatively low-price "momo racing force" that you can still buy:
The wheel itself: very nice finish. It is rubber-coated but at the main grip-zone it does have some "airy" surface-rubber which keeps the sweat from beeing "stored" too much. I liked the thickness of it. The shift-levers were much less demanding in force than the Enzo I had before and had more of an "instant response" - like action (very short travel to trigger), were much larger and even had a more ergonomic location behind the wheel. Feedback was very detailed, but when steering against the simulated force the ff-motor provided way too much resistance to overcome - because of it's long gearing. And with time it developed a little play.
It's most drastic let-down was the pedals: there is no real bearing for the pedals themselves which means: if you take the lid off, you've had it. Take this seriously! If you happen to buy one of those and it's still revision 1 then get in contact with logitech right away since
they will wear out quite quickly!. The problem is that their design was a huge mistake since the springs are unevenly balanced on eihter side of each pedal (they use multiple springs with different force and different initial position of attack, especially on the brake). A Rev. 2 - pedal set is reported to solve this issue and logitech is told to provide rev.2 pedal sets to almost every customer who contacts them about this issue.
THE DPF USES ROUGHLY THE SAME SET OF PEDALS - so be warned!
G25
In Spite of those bad experiences with the momo's pedal set I went on an got a G25. It's been a real gift, this thing. First of all there is the rotation of 900° lock-to-lock. This means almost all types of racing cars can be properly simulated - steering angle-wise.
I could not believe how much realism it added to my lfs-driving experience. The resistance when going against the force is way, way less than with the cheaper stuff, thanks to 2 independent motors and much more direct gearing.
Then there are the pedals with excelent feel to them and a suitable amount of travel and even some progressive (and much higher) resistance to the brake. And: a real bearing for all of them. Haven't had an issue with those for about a year, now. Wheel and pedals still working like a charm - That being said: I didn't use the rig that heavily - just like once or twice a week for some 1-3 hours.
And now the let-down: the shifter-unit! As you can read in this forum every now and then, there is one of those to go wrong within half a year or a tad more time. Mine broke after like 1 year not giving me 2nd and 4th but 6th gear right away - and i confirmed this to be hardware-related by plugging it in on two seperate systems. Seems to be the wiring and/or soldering inside this unit to not meed the standard of the rest of this rig's quality.
Thus right now I'm back to mouse-steer with my G25 currently in RMA. But mind you, I'm no slow-mo with mouse, either.
Final advice: If it's realism that you're after much more than anything else: go either for the DFP or the G25...
...or maybe that "Porsche"-wheel licensed by fanatec would be an even better choice (didn't ever hold that one in my hands). If it's cheap and cheerful gaming without let-downs, maybe that RGT by TM is an equally good choice - not supplying realistic rotation, though. And you can most-likely find the DFP for under 100€ somewhere.
I personally would go for the DFP if money's the issue and maybe swap the pedals for some reasonably priced after-market ones, when time comes. IF you do so make sure the stock pedals are Rev. 2 !!!
If you can afford it go for either the G25 or the 911-wheel.
The momo racing force is not bad either. But I guess the TM-RGT would be the better choice if the finish has improved to that enzo I had.
PS.: Rally and/or GT-cars might have that extra clutch-pedal to override the electro-hydraulic system when equipped with a sequential speed-box, simply for smooth pull aways at start and *parking* practice. WRC and other Rally cars do have to be road-legal AFAIR, simply to make their way between the stages through normal, open traffic. And I think smooth starts are really usefull on some "overpowered" GTRs.
Hope this is useful to you guys
Cheers
DrBen
